Tree Management and Balancing Process Among Panamanian Farmers
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Tree Management and Balancing Process Among Panamanian Farmers Mariana Cecilia Valencia Mestre1 · Lesli Hoey2 · John Vandermeer3 Accepted: 4 July 2020 © Steve Harrison, John Herbohn 2020
Abstract Latin American cattle ranchers have long been depicted as one of the major perpetrators of deforestation. A new conceptualization of Chayanov’s Theory of Peasant Economy is employed to understand ranchers’ perceptions of tree management in Panama. Chayanov’s theory proposes that the family farm is governed by a balance of decisions farmers make between the utility of producing one more item, with the drudgery of producing that item. Farm visits and interviews with 54 Panamanian farmers indicates that trees are actively maintained as part of the utility–drudgery balancing process. These findings suggest that rather than seeing cattle ranchers as perpetrators of deforestation, more research that considers the benefits and tradeoffs farmers confront with tree management could promote productive partnerships among parties invested in farmers’ livelihoods and forest conservation. Keywords Chayanov · Tree management · Balance · Cattle ranchers
Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (https://doi.org/10.1007/s1184 2-020-09453-6) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users. * Mariana Cecilia Valencia Mestre [email protected] https://www.luc.edu/sustainability/about/staff/valenciamestremariana.shtml Lesli Hoey [email protected] https://taubmancollege.umich.edu/faculty/directory/lesli-hoey John Vandermeer [email protected] https://sites.lsa.umich.edu/vandermeer-lab/ 1
Institute of Environmental Sustainability, Loyola University Chicago, Office 422, West Sheridan Road, Chicago, IL 60660, USA
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Urban and Regional Planning Program, University of Michigan, Office 1248A, Art and Architecture Building, 2000 Bonisteel Boulevard, Ann Arbor, MI 48109‑2069, USA
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Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Michigan, 3160 Biological Sciences Building, Ann Arbor, MI 48109‑1048, USA
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Introduction Conservation biologists have long been concerned with tropical rainforest conversion to pastureland. Problems with this conversion include loss of biodiversity, CO2 emission, soil degradation and the displacement of people (Kaimowitz 1996; Steinfeld et al. 2006; Seymour and Harris 2019). Ranchers and farmers with integrated livestock systems tend to be blamed for much of this conversion, depicted as perceiving the forest and trees as incompatible with pasture management (Walker et al. 2000; Steinfeld et al. 2006; Heckadon-Moreno 2009). However, ranchers and farmers can manage trees in the form of live fences, riparian vegetation, horticulture plots, forestry plantation, forest fragments, fallow vegetation and dispersed trees on pastures (Schelhas and Greenberg 1996; Tarbox et al. 2018; Valencia Mestre et al. 2019). Our aim is to examine the relationship between these tree landscape patterns and pasture
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